“To have sex, a woman needs to love, and a man doesn’t”

“Sometimes I feel such a desire that I just can’t control myself, and after that I feel only devastation,” admits 22-year-old Kirill. “Sex is energy. Passion can grab and pull us. Partners excite each other, desire grows, pleasure too, but all the time I know exactly what awaits me at the end – this feeling of emptiness, the feeling that I have not experienced something real … “

What influences our attraction, how does it differ in men and women, and in what ways is it perhaps the same for both sexes?

Men are embarrassed by the excessive frankness of their wives in bed

Alain Eriel, psychoanalyst, sexologist

If we talk about women, today the situation is changing. For centuries, women’s education was based on the fact that for a woman any sexual contact without a feeling of love is simply unthinkable.

However, in practice, as a doctor, I see that modern women feel much more sexually free when they go on adventures than in married life, where they are more concerned about the feelings of the other.

I don’t want to say that this is about sex as a useful exercise: women always put emotions into relationships, even if only for a few moments. But many men continue to say: if my wife did this and that with me in bed, it would embarrass me. Obviously, such men lead a much freer and more varied sexual life outside of marriage.

A woman needs to feel that she is interesting to a partner

Mireille Bonierbal, psychiatrist, sexologist

According to sociological research on the first sexual experience, 80% of girls entered into sexual relations for love, and 80% of boys – to satisfy their excitement and curiosity. So this conventional wisdom is rather justified.

In later life, men with a strong oedipal component of the psyche – those who unconsciously associate tenderness with the image of the mother – continue to share “real” feelings and eroticism.

They remain captive to the opposition of the images of “mother” and “whore”, and an excess of feelings harms their erections. Clean or dirty, immaculate or fallen – it is obvious that such an opposition does not contribute to the flowering of relationships within a couple.

Only by working on themselves, men can cope with this contradiction, many become more aware of their sexual needs and desires after working with a psychotherapist.

For a woman, everything depends on the spark that arises when a couple meets: the more intense the relationship, the more likely it is that her sexuality will be revealed. It does not have to be love: fascinating communication, genuine attention from the other is enough for her desire to be fixed.

A woman does not have to love a man, but she needs to feel that she is interesting, significant – in general, that she exists for him.